Rush

It took a movie like Rush to remind me what a fantastic director Ron Howard can be with the right material.  His output of work this past decade has been largely hit or miss, with 2008's Frost/Nixon easily being his best recent film, until this one came along.  Rush re-teams Howard with that earlier film's screenwriter, Peter Morgan, and the end result is an intense and highly entertaining account of a rivalry that took place between two Formula 1 racers back in 1976.

Unlike a lot of recent uninspired bio-films we've been getting about famous people lately, this does not feel like a paint-by-numbers screenplay that merely recaps the important events of the subject's life.  There is something very up close and personal about Morgan's screenplay that not only puts us into the world of Formula 1 racing, but also into the lives of its two very different main characters who start out as bitter rivals, and eventually build a sort of respect for each other both on and off the race track.  The movie centers on the year that brought us the intense feud that pitted handsome, hard-drinking, hard-living British racer, James Hunt (Chris Hemsworth), against the dour and serious Austrian racer, Niki Lauda (Daniel Bruhl).  James is brash, reckless, and womanizing.  He's the guy who goes to a hospital to fix a wound he got in a fight over another man's woman, and winds up dating the nurse who takes care of him.  Niki, meanwhile, is careful, controlled, calculated, and driven completely to succeed at whatever he does.  So is James, he just believes in having fun along the way.

These two were born to compete against each other.  Of course, they don't see it that way at first.  When they first meet, they can barely stand each other, and see the other as an annoyance.  But right from the beginning, we can see how they are constantly trying to one-up one another.  When Niki manages to use his family fortune to buy his way into Formula 1 racing, James has to advance and compete with him.  When the two men become the frontrunners in the series of races, each can only talk about the other in interviews, and planning strategies to beat one another.  It is the drive that both men feel to top the other that leads to an event that ultimately puts their rivalry in perspective, and makes them realize that they needed each other in order to fulfill their drive to be the best.  I'm being vague here, so as not to ruin some of the more effective dramatic moments of Rush, which turns what was previously one of the best movies about auto racing I've ever seen, into a compelling human drama, and one of the better films of the year.

There are romantic subplots for both men.  James marries a model named Suzy Miller (Olivia Wilde), only to have their relationship fall apart due to his womanizing ways.  As for Niki, he has an encounter with a young woman named Marlene (Alexandra Maria Lara) early on, and they eventually end up standing by each other through their most difficult moments during the later sections of the film.  Some critics have accused the romantic angle of the film of being underdeveloped or pushed in the background, but in this film's case, I almost think it was intentional.  It helps to show just how driven these two men were to beat each other, and how it consumed so much of their lives.  Besides, both women get individual effective moments in the films, so it's not like they're stuck playing shallow types that we have no emotional investment in.

But it is the two lead performances that rightfully make the film what it is.  Hemsworth and Bruhl create two captivating portrayals that are flawed, yet enticing.  Of the two, Bruhl's portrayal of Niki probably earns our sympathies more, especially with some of the struggles he has to go through during the film.  But the screenplay is smart not to make him the flat-out "hero" and the womanizing hard-living character Hemsworth is playing the villain.  Both men have their virtues and their weaknesses, which make both all the more interesting.  When James is talking about his desire to enjoy life as much as possible, it sounds like something he passionately believes in, and in a way, you can see his point.  Not only are both men written intelligently, but the performances are exceptional, with both lead actors delivering their best turns here, especially Bruhl as the dour and driven Niki.

I would also be remiss not to complement the racing sequences, which are some of the best I have ever seen on film.  As someone who is not exactly enamored with auto sports, the way this movie was able to hold my attention through each and every race it depicts is a sign that masters are at work up on the screen.  The racing perfectly captures the exhilaration and the danger that every driver must feel behind the wheel.  We get a real sense of the hazards these men were facing, and even though the film solely focuses on just these two drivers (as it should), we never feel like we're living in a closed world that just centers on them.  Everyone on that track is probably going through the same emotions that they are.  They are our entrance into the world, and are brilliantly used to show the highs and the potential disasters that every driver goes through.

Rush is as exciting as any action film I've seen this year, but more than that, it is a gritty and honest story about two men pushing each other to do their best without realizing it initially.  The movie is raw and can be quite shocking at times (this is probably Ron Howard's harshest movie yet in terms of content), but it is also just an immediately pleasing drama that grabs you early on, and refuses to let go.  Even with some strong early Fall competition, Rush stands as a crowning achievement.

See the movie times in your area or buy the DVD at Amazon.com!

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